great state rooms on the first floor and was proud of the stream of history that lands in each of them. what the passerby doesn't always realize is that there are two sides to the white house. the official side that remains in the public eye and the private side that the public rarely sees. the living quarters for the president and his family. this is our living room, actually it's the west end of the long hall. it's the nerve center and crossroads of all family activities. an intimate place and yet, busy. and it belgs to all the family. >> learn more about first ladies online at c-span.org/history. >> this evening i'm welcoming you under our roof here at

historic decatur house, which is the home of the white house historical association. we are honored to occupy this property that is owned by national trust for historic preservation, one of our wonderful partners in our work and it's terrific to have them here. we have three members of our board of directors who are here this evening, martha kumar is here. i've seen martha. anita mcbride will be here shortly if not here already and david, the exofficial of the board on the right. so it's an honor to have all of you here as well as several members of the council on white house history we're grateful to have. and this evening it's my honor and privilege to introduce really a terrific friend of mine and friend of the white house historical association. mark updegrove for lbj a

historical nor abc news and also an accomplished author. mark has authored five books on the presidency, including this book that we're celebrating this evening "incomparable grace jfk in the president." . i've had the privilege of doing a podcast and it will be released it's fascinating and i think you'll enjoy the time with mark and i think you'll enjoy the time this evening. written for the new york times, politico. national geographic, times, daily beast and usa today. and most recently producer or cnn's lbj, triumph and tragedy. if that's not enough. mark has had the privilege to be the envy of every journalist and historian who has interviewed exclusively seven american presidents throughout his career. 61 years ago that a young john

f. kennedy was sworn into office and by his side, jacqueline kennedy first lady and she would go down in history as a one of the most influential first ladies. it was later that day, on inauguration day that mrs. kennedy arrived at the white house and realized this is a home, the people's house, she would call it, that was badly in need of historic restoration and she believed that the white house should represent the very best of america. artisans, craftsmen, decorative arts, fine arts, furnishings, and so, she took that on as her project over the course of the next three years, cut short tragedy by the assassination of president kennedy, but what she put in place then is still the legacy of her preservations,

education, that's a key part of our mission and we are mrs. kennedy's living legacy at the white house today. well, it was those 61 years ago that we were founded by her and today we continue to undertake that work. my colleague, colleen, and david rubenstein, national center for white house history, really the educational part of our work. and we publish books. we publish a quarterly magazine. we have concerts, symposium, and publishing and story telling is a vital part of what we do and encouraging friends who can unpack these stories. i asked mark earlier, another book on john kennedy, do we really need another book on john kennedy? but i read the book myself and it reads like a novel. it's insightful and inspiring and i'm finding myself oriented

in a different way with the kennedy presidency. and i think you'll all enjoy redding the reading the book. it was 1872 the cornerstone of the white house was laid 200 yards from where we're sitting tonight and a whole lot has taken place since 1792 and tonight we're going to focus on three years on that history. an important three years. and interviewing mark this evening, ann serves as pbs news hour and primary substitute anchor and she's been honored with an emmy award for her nbc news special inside the obama white house. society for features journalism reward. recipient of the international reporting project fellowship and in 2019 received a peabody award for her series on the global plastic problem and tonight she's going to discuss this terrific new book which

remarkably reexamines the kennedy presidency for us and that has so often trapped behind the myth of camelot, if you will, and this will be a portrait of the kennedy presidency, its vision, its flaws, charm, its triumphs failures and certainly grace. bringing the stories to light for us this evening, please well them to the stage. thank you all. [applause] >> hello, everyone. how nice to be in person with people and especially with you, mark, thanks so much for having me here. >> thanks for doing this. wow. that's big stuff. >> here is one thing i'll say before we jump into questions. i have no personal connection to the kennedys. my family had not even set foot on these shores at the time he

was president and yet, i was fascinated by this book. stuart is right, it absolutely reads like a novel and i can't wait for everyone else to get a chance to read it, too. let's go through some of my burning questions first. here is the way this is going to work. i've got about 20 minutes with you and then we'd love to open it up for the room for any questions you might have as well. if you see me checking my phone it's not because i have somewhere to be, it's because i want to be respectful of everyone's time. and as mentioned, there are a few books about kennedy out there. series and films and i've watched all of them. why jfk? why did you decide to do that. >> and a wonderful question. and before i answer, thank you for doing this. and i understand you have an evening job at pbs news hour. >> my pleasure. >> and i'm an admirer of what the work you do.

and thank you to my friend and all the people at the historical association for this marvellous institution and helping to organize this with our mutual friend kimbell. and thank you, friends, for soming tonight. i'm so grateful for you being here and so many people i'd like to recognize and one, if i ma i, and it really leads to your question, an answer to your question. ann is here. ann is the widow of hugh sidy, the legendary president watcher for time magazine. i had the great privilege of working with hugh and got to know ann and hugh through the years. and i will tell you, hugh was actually the president of the white house historical association some 20 years ago. so this please means a great deal, meant a great deal to hugh, but hugh spent time with john f. kennedy and during crucial hours of his

presidency. and i heard from hugh who john f. kennedy was beyond the camelot myth and that got me very intrigued about john f. kennedy. he and i worked on a joint project together, the time and the presidency, and he talked about john f. kennedy and who he was and what he meant to this country, but while there have been many books that have been written, well, there's an expression, write the book you want to read and this is the book that i wanted to read about john f. kennedy. i tried to make it a very brisk narrative, but makes you feel as though you're going through these very tumultuous, very triumphant in many ways, very tragic in others, days of the kennedy presidency. and that you're there with them day in and day out as he wrestles with one issue or another. so, it's episodic in a way that i didn't see the other kennedy treatments. and i also wanted to wrestle

with the camelot myth which overshadows kennedy in so many respects. it deprives him in so many ways of his humanity. and that's important. there are so many books with an agenda. my only agenda was to capture this indelible president and what he meant to the country and the momentous decisions that came across his desk. >> the country is so with the camelot and grips it, why is that? >> and i think it boils down to this, john f. kennedy was and continues to be how we want to see ourselves in the world. youthful, ambitious, elegant, intelligent, compassionate, and instilling the notion or embodying the notion of service

over self. that is the image that he defused abroad at the time i think we were the envy of the world, in many respects. that's the way we want to see ourselves. he's the personification, and the vivacious kennedy family, of how we want to be seen. >> did you learn something new about him in writing this? >> i learned a lot new. one of the things, i thought i new this history pretty well and we were talking about civil rights as being a very important aspect of the kennedy presidency. but one of the things i found out, why did he move on civil rights as he did in 1963? he's wrestling with civil rights in many ways, the freedom rides in 1961, there is at integration of ole miss with matriculation of james meredith in '62 same thing at university of alabama '63.

and the civil rights direct action campaign in birmingham. and during the course of that campaign when martin luther king is taken to jail and writes the famous letter from the birmingham jail, the weight of the civil rights cause is coming down on kennedy in this presidency and looks like he's going to have to act. he's very reluctant to act, to do anything except to protect civil rights marchers and i've always wondered why he did it at that moment. it turns out that bobby kennedy who was his brother's chief aide, most trusted and close advisor, goes down south to alabama and meets with george wallace and meets with just horrific resistance down there. you know, people are hurling epithets at him and treating him certainly not like he's the attorney general of the united states. but interestingly enough, a more poignant episode for bobby kennedy comes when he meets with edwin, the novelist and

entertainers at bobby kennedy's father's penthouse in manhattan and it is a very uncomfortable situation where they're confronting bobby kennedy with the racism that the kennedy administration has not addressed. and they're unrelenting in their criticism of him. and it has the searing impression on him. and he goes back to the white house and at first, he criticizes those who were at the party and he talks about how horrible he is and that he's gay and my god, what a horrendous thing this is, it's another time, obviously. then he says, you know what? if i were in those shoes i'd be saying the same thing. and i think he had a marked impression on his brother as well and finally his brother

decided, when george wallace, segregationist in alabama, went to the university of alabama and knows this well and blocks an administrative building so that two african-americans can't matriculate into the institution. kennedy says i'm not going to let him have the stage i'm going to go on and talk about civil rights and bobby encourages him to do that and he does it and elevates civil rights to a moral issue. and the interesting thing is, they don't have enough time to make an address. and ted sorenson said i don't have time to give awe proper address, but bobby tells his brother, speak extemporaneously. speak from your heart. so that speech which is one of his high points, most of it is extemporaneous. and that was something that really surprised me, how that came to fruition. how he came to embrace the civil rights movement as a moral issue. >> that's fascinating and he actually listened to his

brother over the advice of most of his advisors, right? >> exactly right. his advisors tell him not to do it. bobby says, no, you feel it, go out and tell the american people how you feel. >> and one thing that fascinated me about the book is the way you've broken it up. you've got four parts, basically, the torch, the fire shall the brink and the peak. so, why-- explain that a little bit. why break it up that way. what do each mean? >> take it through the kennedy presidency. the torch, we know that the torch has been passed and that famous passage from his inauguration speech. the torch was passed. >> and the oldest president is leaving, eisenhower, and the youngest is coming in. generational shift and the torch has been passed. and at that point kennedy has captured imagination of

american people. he only won by points. and the american people are all in on john kennedy and so much so when he needs the fire of his presidency, the torch has been passed and the fire has yet to come. it comes with the bay of pigs and a number of things that john kennedy simply can't anticipate. it says something about kennedy and the american people at that time and our country in another era, that when kennedy suffers this huge black eye on his presidency, with the bay of pigs quagmire where over 100 cuban nationalists are killed in the incursion of cuba and 1200 are taken captive and the american people approve of john f. kennedy to the tune of 83%. only 5% of americans disapprove of john f. kennedy's job approval. we rallied around our young

president at a time we were fighting for hearts and mind with the soviet union. we know how important it was to put all we had behind this young and in many ways inexperienced callow president. that's the fire-- sorry, the peak-- the brink comes in 1962 with the cuban missile crisis where we find ourselves on the brink of possible nuclear holocaust, where we stare eye to eye with the soviet union as they're bringing missiles into cuba, largely as a result of the failed incursion of cuba with the bay of pigs. that em bolded khrunichev, kennedy's counterpart in the soviet union and we've come as close as we have come to nuclear disaster, i talked with hugh about meeting with kennedy at the height of the cuban

crisis and it was at night and it ended up, kennedy and hugh had a long conversation in the oval office and then kennedy decides he wants to go skinny dipping and hugh says well, i don't have a suit and he says, you don't need one. but he leaves-- hugh leaves the white house and goes through the black gates not knowing whether there's going to be a tomorrow. that's how dark those days were. that was the brink and then the peak comes after that in 1963 where kennedy stand at the peak of his presidency. he has resolved the cuban missile crisis peacefully against all odds. and he gained the esteem of the world and he's standing at his peak when he's cut down at his prime. >> the slim margin of victory i don't think is talked about enough. >> amazing. >> you try to imagine what that would look like if it happened today and it would be a very different reaction, i think, so why-- how did he maintain that kind

of popularity, that approval. was it him, was it where the country was at the time. a combination of the two? >> i think it's part of-- people ask me all the time why joe biden can't be another lbj and the answer is because the world has changed. our nation has changed fundamentally. john f. kennedy has two-thirds majority in the house and the senate. he's battling siefl civil rights, he's battling his own party in the south, but handsome majorities. and the majority, there wasn't a proliferation and networks today. we had three networks. abc, nbc and cbs pbs would come later. and we had a few loose paper. there was a more centrist few of the world and again, it says something major that kennedy would be as popular as he was just shortly into his

presidency when he wasn't doing so well on the world stage. >> you know a thing or two about lbj, fair to say. talk to me about their relationship. what was that like? >> well, people talk about the kennedys and lbj and the kennedys were not monolithic, there were different kennedies and they had different relationships. and the relationship between john kennedy and lyndon johnson, grudging respect. john kennedy wanted to get something done as a senator of massachusetts, largely a back betcher who didn't achieve a whole lot relative to the peers he had in the upper chamber and he had to go through lyndon johnson, the all powerful senate majority leader. his father, joe kennedy, the patriarch had enormous respect for lyndon johnson. he said don't take the second spot on the 1956 democratic ticket unless lyndon johnson is the presidential nominee.

and even offers to fund the campaign if lyndon johnson chooses to run. so, there was great respect there. i think the confusion about this comes where bobby kennedy comes in. bobby kennedy despised lyndon johnson and lyndon johnson didn't feel any differently about bobby kennedy. they were fundamentally different people, but i think john f. kennedy picked lyndon johnson to go on the ticket for two reasons, three reasons, one was political. he needed southern balance on the ticket. and what better balance than lyndon johnson from austin, texas. again, who had so much power, but the second one was that he picked a vice-president because he was the person most capable in his view of operating in the presidency should something happen to him. and then that was the case. >> i mean, when you look back on it now, obviously there's been so much reflection on his abbreviated presidency, right? it was an incredibly eventful

presidency, too. that short tenure. so you mentioned cuban missile crisis, what we were actually facing at that time. is it fair to say that that was sort of the darkest hour? was that the worst that it got and was there the greatest triumph, too, for him? >> there's no question in my mind, that's the darkest moment not only in the kennedy presidency, but maybe the darkest moment in humankind to come that close to nuclear annihilation. bear in mind the majority of the american people at that point in time believed that there's going to be a nuclear exchange imminently. that's how tense the relationship was between the soviet union and the united states of america. it's interesting because there's a transition meeting between eisenhower and kennedied secretary -- kennedy, the second meeting. and it's before kennedy inaugurated as president.

they talk about the trouble spots in the world and all the trouble spots of which there are many and you can see eisenhower's almost relief in relinquishing these problems and giving them over to jack kennedy. and kennedy leaves the white house and as the limousine is departing, he looks at an aide in the back seat and says of eisenhower, how can he stair stare in the face of disaster we can equanimity. but it's that equanimity that describes kennedy in the missile crisis. there's a preeternatural calm that calm over. >> that's the public kennedy, grace under pressure, was he like that in private all the time? >> i think so.

hugh says he was compartmentlized. and people saw a different jack kennedy and people said the same thing about lyndon johnson. there was a certain vitality that he had, you know, that we look at him as being so vigorous and so youthful. but he had battled illness his whole life and i think he saw the pain of human life. he'd been in world war ii. he lost his brother there. he lost his sister soon thereafter. his sister rosemary had a lobotomy because of retardation, and so he saw the fleeting hold that life had and he tried to make the most of his life, but i think in those hours, those really crucial hours, the cerebral kennedy kicked in and he was really thoughtful about what the best approach would be going forward. he was determined to avoid military conflict. in laos, when the berlin wall

went up, and of course the cuban missile crisis he wanted peace, i think that calm, not reacting in anger, not reacting passionately. not listening to the jingoistic military advisors who were telling him to engage. that defines kennedy. >> what about today, 60 years later. what's his legacy on the party, on the presidency, on the country? >> i'm going to read a passage from my book, if i may. [laughter] >> you know, i would -- i really thought about this, how did i want to end the book and what his legacy looks like and here is what i came up with. throughout the course of his restless abridged reign in the white house he dealt with the pressures of the office standing on feet of clay at times, showing flashes of greatness at others. but as he did indellbly, honor and grace edging out abandon,

calling forth the best in all of us. and i think in so many ways kennedy, again, he personifies that notion of service over self. and the phrase we most remember with john f. kennedy, ask not -- ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. and that's become this timeless expression of an american ideal what we should all be reaching beyond ourselves and kennedy at his rhetorical heights gets us to do that. >> i could keep going another hour, but i will stop here and open it up to the room. anyone who has a question. firsthand went up. yeah. >> yes, when he began the -- a member of the media, i recall

katharine graham memoir, she examined the relationship between the media, the press, and the presidency and how close it was to -- to talk about hugh going swimming with the president in the pool on the night that seemed so dark. lbj comes along in the tragic murder. how did that relationship change? and in what way? it seems to me and i'd like to hear you talk about this, whether or not john kennedy's profile with the press heightened his profile around the world and whether or not a changed relationship had a impact on lyndon johnson. >> and he worked for a paper

briefly after he came back from combat and he found in his post presidency he might buy a newspaper or might become an editor. i think there was a distinct possibility that he thought the fourth estate to be a fundamental part of democracy. but he also knew the value in cultivating those relationships. i can tell you in talking to hugh who probably had a few scars on his calves, kicked at least metaphorically by kennedy by his coverage, and kennedy had enormous respect for hugh and the respect for journalism and he knew the clout of time magazine, time magazine was a behemoth at the time. and i think things started to fade during the johnson

presidency. kennedy creates a literal tide, in the most literal sense, that flows into the johnson presidency. faith in government in 1964 stands at 77%. and that's largely because of john f. kennedy, i think, having us believe in ourselves and believe in our government. but lyndon johnson, while he takes advantage of that and puts through the laws of the great society mostly 1965 after he's elected presidency in his own right faces the quagmire of vietnam and maybe not necessarily truthful with the american people maybe by his own doing or misled by his advisors, as the war becomes more and more controversial, the press becomes more and more critical. and i think that's when things sort of start to slide. but you know, all presidents have a mixed relationship with the press.

and the lbj library there's a quote from lyndon johnson, if i walked across the potomac, the headline in the next day's washington post would be, president can't swim. [laughter] >> and there were changes, right? there's always some what of an adversarial relationship, but john f. kennedy, i think, be guiled the press about as well as any president we've had. thanks, riley. >> we'll work across the room. thank you for being here and the lbj special is really lovely. congrats on that. >> thank you. >>... a specialist in both these presidents. what would you look for as a voter in your modern president? say again? i'm so sorry. what do you look for in a president? you as like a scholar of the presidency. you know, i i've been asked this before and i think at the end of

the day all presi >> i've been asked that before anything at the end of the day president are different. they come in with different skill sets and experiences. they come in with different visions and outlooks on the world and i think it's hard to take any leader with -- paint in the lead with the same brush. we should expect different things in different leaders because not everyone is capable the same things. the best we can expect from our president is they lead the country and they do their best. and most of the president's in myel lifetime, in my view, have help up to that criteria. they did their best and they love their country. john f. kennedy -- john f. kennedy certainly fits thatn criteria as does lyndon johnson and so many others, but i honestly i don't know we can ask for anything else. john f. kennedy was so different from dwight eisenhower and from franklin roosevelt and from ronald reagan. but all those presidents were in the top ten of all presidents

but for very, very different reasons. but by god if you love your country and you give us your very best things are probably going to wind up pretty well for the american people and for the world. >> i think the microphones are working their way around here. >> thank you very much foris th. it's a wonderful discussion. your books books are great. your stories with lbjbj is great so it's a wonderful occasion. to my questions. number one is we all learn that character is primary.y it's very important. and it's very odd that kennedy's character of public service was so exemplary and so inspiring, and his personal character was not. and this seems to be a total split between the public service that he did on the values that

he hade and the private values that he had come which operate despicable if you look back at it now. second point is that you actually write the cuban missile crisis was a tremendous triumph, martin short one has a new book out that's just terrific on that. and the way kennedy handled it was just terrific. when you look back at the kennedy presidency you just wonder what was lasting about it? what did he do in those years that really lasted? >> you know, you were in charge of the lbj library foundation and there are so many things as we are celebrating on the 50th anniversary that were lasting, and everyday we we see lbj programs that it benefited all of us. it's hard to think of one from kennedy. >> yeah, thank you. those are wonderful observations, and is

interesting, going back to your first point, is interesting to write about this madman error president and the me too era, talk about that and really put all light up to his character by virtue of where we stand in 2022 with, as much as we've advanced as a society in that regard. you're right, kennedy doesn't look good. the cuban missileus crisis, just one comment on that. the misconception is that it was a zero-sum victory for the united states, the russians, the very embolden nikita khrushchev sins and missiles into cuba and we stared i, they blink and we withdraw. that's true. we didn't realize until yearser there was a quid pro quo agreement around that. there were missiles in turkey that we had over dangerous agitators close to this soviet border posing and as a central

threat to sizer about to be or there were missiles in cuba, just 90 miles from american shores. it was a blatant moment pretend but we we realize much later that it was due to a back bchannel negotiation that we gt out of that peacefully. it's a credit to kennedy but it is not a zero-sum victory. in terms of his lasting, here's my view on that. again i mention this high tide of liberalism that kennedy creates, and it's funny because you look at the legacies of john f. kennedy and lyndon johnson, and so often they are, you are either team kennedy our team johnson. and never the twain shall meet. they have incredible complementary legacies in my view because john f kerry gets us thinking buildti ourselves, because he instills such faith in government, lyndon johnson is able to capitalize on that and get through the laws of the

great society, which become the foundation of modern america. the civil rights act come for instance, of 1963 which kennedy proposed in the speech i was just talking about was largely languishing in the halls of congress when kennedy died. he didn't have the legislative the might or both to get it through.oh lyndon johnson did and he did that in so many unfinished things from the kennedy administration. in many cases lbj made them bigger, but john f. kennedy tried to get to medicate and failed. john f. kennedy tried to get through federal education, federal aid education and failed. all these things were on his desk, but the one thing that kennedy does is get us thinking about a better america, and lyndon johnson can f capitalizen that. >> if i can follow up on one thing, ontario from a historians perspective the revelations that we know now about his personal

character and his rampant womanizing, doesan that change w we as a country should view his presidency and his leadership? >> the one thing i would say is ken is right, it's despicable behavior in many respects come if a look at what he treats and in turn. aa book about john f. kennedy, the unfinished presidency, in which he reveals that there was a white house intern to whom, who loses her virginity to john f. kennedy at the age of 19 in a first week in the white house and he takes her around the country and the world almost as concubine. it's very difficult too excuse this kind of behavior. but i will say it didn't affect his ability to discharge the duties of the presidency. it might have compromised at some point but it did not. i think he comes by his womanizing relatively honestly.

his father was a rampant womanizer himself' i think for the kennedys womanizing was almost a way of keeping score in an odd way, and here's john f. kennedy trying to get the most out of life and those notches on his belt were part of it in a way, in a weird way. i can't explain it. but it is certainly a deficit in the character and i would say at the time walter cronkite spoke about the fact that if a politician was womanizing or was abusing alcohol, it didn't matter if it didn't affect his duties to be a public official. and so the gloves were off. kennedy knew that to a certain extent i think, that the wasn't this great scrutiny by the press corps work of course that would change markedly later, should change later. we should know about about our politicians. >> questions? yes. >> we know that khrushchev met kennedy and i think that the

story was any way that he kind of thought that kennedy was no big thing and a was probably jut a young boy and he could deal with them. what finally convinced khrushchev to back off? was a the missiles in turkey, or was it that some a kennedy had shown enough strength that he would back down our respective? >> you know, john, i begin the book with john f. kennedy talking to a member of the press, riley, and this goes back tohi your point, how intimate te relationship was between kennedy and the press. the book begins with the prologue, and it is john f. kennedy right after going model amano with nikita khrushchev at the summit -- model amano -- superpower some indiana. kennedy goes in, this glamorous

elegant figure such a dashing figure on a workstation of the high expectations. and khrushchev goes in thinking that is very callow and can be exploited. and kennedy's performance over those two days against the very truculent, very pugnacious nikita khrushchev leads khrushchev to believe that he's come and encoding khrushchev, too intelligent and too weak. and kennedy that khrushchev hash this impression. he goes back after these endless two days of meetings with christian to the american embassy in vienna, and he talks to scotty reston who is with the reporter from the "new york times." it's an off the record conversation in which kennedy concedes that he has been savaged, those are his words, i nikita khrushchev. he says, and he knows that nikita khrushchev has been emboldened by this encounter,, and he says until we remove those ideas, there could be real

trouble in the world. andd again i think it's that meeting, it's that face-to-face interaction with kennedy that emboldens khrushchev to make the move in cuba. and it's the resolution of that conflict between the two that gives khrushchev respect for kennedy for the first time come for the reasons that i mentioned. the way that khrushchev talked about in his memoir is that kennedy wasen clearheaded in tht moment. he did show grace and equanimity. equanimity. he did talk toi' khrushchev, albeit through back channels come to try to find a peaceful resolution, and again he didn't paintings of and a corner. and that made a difference. and after that khrushchev stocks go down inn the world and john . kennedy's goes up. >> there are so many fascinating details in this book. i really enjoyed reading it. i really hope everyone gets a chance to read it them all.

tell your friends come spread the word. i do want to be respectful but once time and i want to give you the chance to share any other piece of information or a story or a nugget from here that you think people find interesting the four we leave the stage enjoy the rest of evening. i'll tell you a quick story that i love and it comes my old french you society. kennedy goes, you know, this wonderful inauguration the entire world is watching and talked about the soaring eloquence inom that moment, and then he goes on to the inaugural balls afterwards and goes to a party in the wee hours of the morning and he crawls back into the white house about three in the morning. and because the presidential bedroom is being renovated, he sleeps in the lincoln bedroom. at the next he is asked what was it like to sleep in the bed of abraham lincoln? and he said, i just climbed in and honan. [laughing] i think that hung on. i think that's true for almost

any president.or amna, thank you so much for conducting this conversation. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, amna and mark for this conversation tonight and thank you all for joining us here at decatur house, white house historical association, and for those of you watching by c-span, thank you for your interest in a work at her mission telling these important stories of white house history. the book is available, mark is available to son. inc. is a much, and have a good evening. [applause] >> weekends on c-span2 on intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story, and on sundays booktv brings you the latest and nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes on frm these television companies and more including cox. >> homework can be hard but

squatting and adina for internetwork is even harder. that's why we're providing low income students access to affordable internet so homework can just be homework. >> cox connes to compete. >> cox, along with these television companies, supports c-span2 as a public service. >> this special day national museum of american history presented its great americans metal to justice ruth bader ginsburg. a posthumous award honored her legal and judicial career as well as her legacy as a u.s. supreme court justice. here's a portion of the ceremony. >> please join in watching the second beacon focuses on justice ginsburg's role in the supreme court and let substate peek at that objects that are joining the collection of your national museum of american history.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> early in her supreme court career, ginsburg wrote the majority opinion for several landmark cases, including the courts opinion declaring the virginia military could go longer remain an all-male institute. stating that, oh, generalizations about the way women are an estimate of what is appropriate for most women, no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description. women seeking unfit for a vmi quality education cannot be offered anything less. >> watch the full program any time online at